Flu confusion blamed for Myanmar’s poultry sector woes

Apparently confused by the two types of influenza virus circulating in Myanmar, consumers have been buying less poultry, leading local chicken and egg producers to call for government support.

Photo by Andrea Gantz
Photo by Andrea Gantz

Apparently confused by the two types of influenza virus circulating in Myanmar, consumers have been buying less poultry, leading local chicken and egg producers to call for government support.

The poultry industry in Myanmar – also known as Burma – has lost MMK165 million (US$122,000) over the last three months as the result of outbreaks of H1N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), according to a recent report in a local newspaper that has been picked up by the English language news agency, Global New Light of Myanmar.

The report points to the confusion in the community between recent outbreaks of HPAI in poultry in two districts, and completely unrelated cases of H1N1 influenza in people.

Representing the Mandalay Poultry Association, Dr. Nay Thurain has called on the authorities to clarify to the public that H1N1 seasonal flu will inevitably occur every year, and that it has nothing to do with eating chicken.

According to Myanmar Times, this confusion has caused consumers to avoid purchasing chicken and eggs in recent weeks over fears of contracting flu. Although no new HPAI outbreaks in poultry have been reported since July, the market has not yet fully recovered.

With the current price of poultry at the farm gate of around MMK1,250 (US$0.92) per kilo, Thurain says average production costs of around MMK1,750 (US$1.29) are not even covered. As a result, many broiler producers and poultry breeders are being forced to give up their businesses, and output is down by 20 percent. He forecasts monthly production at eight million birds in September, down from the usual 10 million.

One farmer said that there were signs of improvement in purchases of poultry meat and eggs, but prices have not returned to the pre-HPAI per-kilo levels of MMK2,188 (US$1.62) for chicken meat and MMK1,406 (US$1.04) for eggs.

Daw Chaw Su Myat of Kyi Pyar farm said that some of the surplus production has been exported, and that the next two months are crucial for the business. She said the coming season for weddings and other celebrations may help to boost sales and return prices to the previous levels.

Myanmar’s animal health authority reported three outbreaks of H5N1 HPAI in poultry in July of this year. The initial outbreak was in a flock of 5,000 laying hens in the Dawei district of Tanintharyi province. This was followed by a cluster of a further 10 outbreaks in the same area, affecting 25,555 hens, and a small village flock was lost to the disease in Yangon province at the end of July. There have been no official reports of further outbreaks since that time.

According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s statistical agency, FAOstat, Myanmar’s production of chicken meat amounted to 1.08 million metric tons in 2013, and egg output was 392,000 metric tons in 2014. For both products, these figures are the most recent to be published, and continue trends of increasing output since 2010.

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